The fashion industry produces 100 billion new garments every year. Clothes are so cheap; they’re often worn once, then binned. According to Greenpeace, 300,000 tonnes of clothes are burned or buried in the UK every year.  

The rise in cheap, so-called ‘fast’ fashion particularly popular amongst Gen Z and Millennial shoppers is a major contributor.

eBay, meanwhile, has been selling ‘pre-loved’ clothes since 1995. And yet, despite the surge of interest in ‘sustainability’, second-hand fashion didn’t have anywhere near the mass appeal of fast fashion. A study by Leeds University revealed that 69% of shoppers have negative views of second-hand clothes. 

Simply put, used clothes were not seen as cool or stylish, especially by young people who were driving fast fashion sales. eBay needed to shift this perception.

So, to ignite a second-hand revolution, we had to show Gen Z and Millennials that used clothes could be on-trend and desirable. 

This was a mass-market message to a young, mass-market audience. And, as the biggest UK show for under 35s, Love Island was the ideal TV property to reach them.

But to convince this notoriously picky audience that second-hand clothes could be as stylish as the fast fashion brands they’d grown to love, we knew that, at the heart of this ground-breaking partnership, we needed pre-loved product placement.

Therefore, we recruited celebrity stylist and ex-Cosmopolitan Fashion Director, Amy Bannerman, to assemble the pre-loved wardrobe for the show’s contestants. (Importantly, to put our ‘pre-loved’ message front and centre, ‘islanders’ were encouraged to re-wear and swap items.)

Beyond the broadcast itself, we knew our message needed to live in the same channels fans used to chat about the show. So, as well as contextual TV ads, we also used digital and social to increase consideration for eBay and communicate its pre-loved fashion credentials.

Throughout the series, from June to July 2022, we ran contextual co-branded TV and video ads, ensuring we caught all ‘on demand’ viewing to celebrate the pre-loved looks. Time-targeted Twitter ads then naturally inserted pre-loved fashion into the Love Island conversation. 

For the show’s big moments such as parties and bombshell dates, we created shoppable edits of pre-loved pieces like those seen on screen. True to eBay’s format, these featured in live auctions, enabling fans to get the look by bidding on over 40 of the season’s most-coveted outfits. 

We also understood Love Island’s power to turn people into platforms with ex-contestants leaving the villa to millions of followers. So, on social, we created content showing contestants unboxing pre-loved clothes (all from eBay packaging) and talking through their favourite looks. Finally, post the show, we continued our relationship with one of the most stylish contestants, Tasha, as a pre-loved ambassador.

We dominated the news agenda with 1707 pieces of media coverage, including national publishers like The Guardian, BBC News, and fashion specialists Vogue, Marie Claire and Glamour. This ignited a conversation that put into question the future of fast fashion and heralded a new era normalising pre-loved, with eBay at the heart of the story.

Critically, the campaign resulted in a 500% SOV rise in earned media for eBay.

Meanwhile Google searches for “Preloved eBay” soared by 7000%, alongside a +1600% uplift in searches for “pre-loved fashion” on eBay throughout the campaign activity (May-July). We also saw 935% more mentions of ‘pre-loved fashion’ across all online platforms than the same time last year.

47% of Love Island viewers even admitted they would consider buying pre-loved over new items since watching the show, with 23% actually making their first pre-loved purchase that summer.